


One

by sparkyeureka (sparkycap)



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Daddy Issues, First Kiss, M/M, Parent/Child Incest, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 00:05:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11543259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparkycap/pseuds/sparkyeureka
Summary: Chuck Hansen is not a romantic, nowhere close to sentimental, but that doesn't mean he's okay with getting his first kiss from some stranger in the street for the world to see.





	One

When Chuck is nineteen, some blonde jaeger fly grabs him in the street and tries to kiss him.

They’re fresh off a fight, back in Sydney for all of twenty minutes, and shit, all Chuck wanted to do was get Max a walk and collapse face first into bed. Some thanks he gets for spending his Saturday saving a few million people.

The girl is giggling, bubbly, and it’s not a _problem_ , exactly. The whole thing is over in half a minute. She’s a tiny thing, and even if she wasn’t Chuck would have no problem breaking her grip on his arm and ducking away. The unsettling part is the momentary thought that he’d rather take on another kaiju than deal with her, and how it takes longer than he’d like for his brain to register that this isn’t a fight, that his first instinct to twist her arm behind her back and kick her legs out is unnecessary.

It’s mostly Max barking that snaps him out of it. He does manage to tamp down on it quick enough to prevent any PR nightmares.

What he does do is stumble backward into Herc’s chest, so he can feel as well as hear his father's low laughter when he steadies him with a hand on his shoulder. Usually Chuck would bristle and shrug him off, but he knows it’s only second nature—not an assist but a byproduct of the drift, still so in sync that he’d probably known Chuck was going to fall into him before it happened, and what else could he do but counter it.

“Someone’s jumpy.” Herc waves the girl off and turns them back toward home. If Chuck’d done it like that he’d never hear the end of what an arrogant asshole he is, everyone and their fucking mother chiming in to tell him how _rude_ it was, like politeness is the important thing here with the world falling down around them, but Herc gets away with _everything_.

He squeezes Chuck’s shoulder once before he lets go, and Chuck is aware enough this time to keep from leaning toward him looking for more. Instead he takes Max’s leash back, wraps it twice around his hand, and tells himself he doesn’t need anything else.

“Yeah, talk to me when you start getting assaulted in the fucking street, all right,” he says, glancing around to check that they’ve left their adoring crowd behind before he can relax.

Herc certainly has his share of admirers, but none of them ever try to jump _him_. Which is probably why he can look so amused and say so easily, “I know that must’ve been pretty scary—”

Chuck scowls. “Shut it, old man.”

“Don’t—” Herc cuts himself off with one of those deep, calming breaths he always needs to take around Chuck, contents himself with squeezing tight around the back of his neck and yanking him toward the entrance to the ‘dome. Chuck could swear his knees buckle a little. Dad’s always handsy after a drift—most people are, really, and for a lot of copilots that usually seems to mean cuddling up like a pair of kittens for a nap, but for Chuck it means getting physically dragged around for a couple hours until his old man’s satisfied himself that he can let him go.

It suits them better.

In their quarters—Herc’s led them there without asking, and Chuck would argue for form’s sake but he’s so tired, it was a long drift, and Herc hadn’t touched him the whole way there but Chuck can still feel the ghost of his dad’s hand heavy on the back of his neck—he heads straight for the bathroom, and then pauses in the doorway to say, “Pretty girl.”

“Hm?” Chuck has only just managed to unclip Max’s leash and get his jacket off, and that’s as far as he gets before all his energy goes to just staying on his feet, resisting the urge to collapse into bed. Dad’s bed, because fuck if he can muster the energy to climb up to his bunk.

“That girl,” Herc says, odd look on his face. “She was pretty.”

It takes another full minute for Chuck to register who he’s even talking about. Then he snorts. “Little young for you, don’t you think?”

“Not the point,” Herc says.

Chuck leans tiredly against the bunks. “Get to the fucking point, then.”

“Never give any of them the time of day, do you?” Herc asks.

“Got more important things to do, don’t I?” Chuck counters, giving in and closing his eyes, temple resting against the cold metal bedframe.

There’s no sound to go along with Herc walking across the room, but he knows it’s happening anyway, feels it with a kind of bone deep certainty that keeps him still, not even tempted to open his eyes and check. He _knows_.

Then his dad’s hands are on him again, fingers curled in the collar of Chuck’s shirt like he might pull it off. “Need a little help?”

“Fuck off,” Chuck mumbles, but he doesn’t move.

There’s a scrape on his jaw, dried blood streaked down his neck, and he feels Herc’s fingers brush over it. “Gotta wash up, boy.”

“Fuck off,” Chuck says again, feels Herc’s huff of laughter on his neck and shivers.

“There a reason I never see you with any girls?” he asks, voice quiet and low.

Chuck finally opens his eyes. Herc’s gaze is unblinking, and Chuck hasn’t been intimidated by that look for a long time. “You askin’ if I’m queer or what?”

“Saw something in the drift today,” he answers. Chuck freezes.

Almost before he can start to panic, Herc nudges closer, booted feet knocking Chuck’s wider, head tilting like he’s asked a question. Chuck exhales a shaky breath, mouth parting, and it’s as good as an answer.

But of course, because this is Chuck’s life, because this is what he’s wanted more than most other things for at least four years now, he has to fuck it up. He draws back just the slightest bit, and Herc stops, and it’s all Chuck can do to reach out and grab him by the shoulders before he pulls away completely. “Wait.”

“If you’re not—”

Chuck regains his strength to drive Herc forward, shoving him against the closest wall and holding him there, arms braced against his shoulders. He grits out, “ _Wait_.”

Herc just leans back against the wall with an unreadable expression. And waits.

And Chuck has no idea where to go from here.

It’s not as if he’s shy. Certainly not hesitant, definitely not _afraid_. He just likes to do things right, is all, and if he can usually do that by charging full speed ahead and winging it, so much the better.

But he doesn’t know how to do this. There’s no handbook for it, no manual, it’s not something he’s seen over and over—he’s pretty sure it’s common fucking courtesy to look away when people kiss in front of you, and it’s not like he has much time or patience for the kind of movies that end with kissing in the rain—so there’s nothing to go on.

The most he’s got is maybe a few hazy childhood memories of his parents kissing whenever Dad came home, and he’d really rather not think about that right now.

Buying time, he leans in and presses his lips to his dad’s jaw, mouthing over his beard and breathing in deep as he does. He smells like sweat and metal, and for a moment Chuck gets distracted feeling up his torso to find where the blood scent is coming from.

“Easy,” Herc murmurs.

“Where—”

“Shoulder.”

It’s shallow, no need for stitches, but Chuck can’t help pulling away, mumbling about needing a bandage. Before he can take a step, Herc spins him so he’s the one up against the wall this time. Herc searches his face, and Chuck lets him, thinking maybe he’ll just know. But he says, “Talk.”

And because Chuck wants this more than anything, because he doesn’t know how to fail and especially doesn’t know how to quit, he forces himself to say, “I don’t know how.”

He hates admitting to the weakness, hates that somehow his father is both the first and last person he’d ever want to ask for help.

“Yeah, no shit,” Herc says, amused, and he thinks Chuck means he doesn’t know how to talk—there may be some truth to that, but that’s not the point here—Chuck can tell, right up until his eyes widen. “Fuck.”

“That either,” Chuck says, thinking vaguely of breaking the tension, but it just makes his dad’s eyes darken. Chuck could practically feel his guilt this whole time, warring with that strange sense of entitlement that comes from spending so much time inside someone's head, but only now does it start to show up on his face.

And then he touches their foreheads together, one hand rough on his cheek. “Fuck, I can’t—you’ve never—”

“I wanted it to be you,” Chuck says all in a rush. “Not like I haven’t got a lot of offers, you know, but I only wanted—”

 _Say it_. Chuck hears the words as clearly as if Herc had said them out loud. He wants to, Chuck knows, but he doesn’t, because if they started asking each other to say aloud things they both already know, who knows what else would come out. 

Instead Herc tightens his fingers on Chuck’s jaw to hold him in place—so tight he thinks he’ll bruise and god, he wants that—and finally kisses him.

It’s gentle at first, and neither of them have ever been all that good at gentle but this is different. Herc is good at this, knows exactly what he wants to do, and for a long moment he just lingers, their mouths slotted together, slow sensual pressure until he drags his teeth lightly over Chuck’s bottom lip and Chuck can’t help the embarrassing little sound he makes.

Dad hums, a distinct note of approval in the sound that shoots heat straight through Chuck’s stomach. He wants to blame his shaking hands on post-battle adrenaline. Instead he holds onto Herc’s arms—and Chuck’s hands aren’t exactly small but he can’t fit them all the way around and god, he’s _dreamed_ about these arms—to anchor himself, and his dad is the same steady touchstone he’s always been, no matter how much Chuck resents it sometimes.

“That’s it,” Herc whispers, and his grip on Chuck softens right as he kisses him harder. It’s almost too much, strong fingers just barely brushing his cheek a dizzying counterpoint to the deep kiss, firm and all-encompassing and Chuck can hardly breathe.

He drops his head back against the wall. “Dad—”

Those fingers skim down his neck, settling at the base like he’s feeling for a pulse. “All right?”

And Chuck, despite his racing heart, can’t quite work up the energy to get offended, but he can’t just let that lie. This is new and more overwhelming than he’d expected, but he’s not some kid that needs to be coddled. He shrugs it off, shoves him off, and turns the tables again, gets his dad up against the wall with an arm across his chest. “Better than you, old man.”

Herc just looks amused, so Chuck leans in again, determined to kiss that look off his face. It’s clumsy, not nearly as sure as Herc’s, noses bumping before he rights himself, lips landing off-center, on the corner of Herc’s mouth and working his way over. Dad makes another one of those sounds, this quiet, pleased little rumble, and he can feel his face burning as he presses on.

Learns his way around this, too, until he’s curling his fingers around Herc’s shoulder instead of pinning him, and Herc’s hand is tight around the back of his neck, not guiding but keeping him close.

If he tried to take over, Chuck would let him. The knowledge of that burns shamefully in his throat, that and something else stealing his voice away, for the best because Chuck has never made anything better with words. But he doesn’t try. He just trails calloused fingers over the nape of Chuck’s neck and says, warm and low, “My boy. Always a fast learner.”

Chuck makes a strangled noise that might be a mangled swear and is definitely nowhere close to a sob. He pulls back. Herc pulls him forward for one last kiss, gentle again, so tender Chuck can hardly stand it, before he lets him go.

And then Chuck can finally breathe again, but he can’t decide what to do, to go for it again or to walk away, and he’s sure the indecision must show all over his face and he hates it.

Herc studies him for a beat, and then makes the decision for him, nudges him toward the bathroom. “Go wash up.”

Chuck hates even more that he listens.


End file.
